DAKAR (Reuters) - At least four people have died from Ebola
in Liberia's capital, a World Health Organization (WHO) and a
government official said on Tuesday, the first confirmed deaths
in Monrovia from a months-long regional outbreak.

"There are seven cases reported in one of the suburbs of
Monrovia and four are confirmed. They are all dead," said WHO's
country representative Nestor Ndayimirije.

He said that the new Monrovia cases had been linked to a
woman who arrived from neighboring Sierra Leone about a
fortnight ago.

A health ministry report on June 11 showed there were then
30 suspected and confirmed cases in Liberia.

Thomas Nagbe, Director of Disease Prevention and Control
Division at Liberia's Health Ministry, said that there were four
dead from Ebola in the capital and four other deaths from
suspected cases.

"We never had the opportunity to confirm the other four
because they died and were buried before we got to know," said
Nagbe, adding that one of the dead was a health worker.

The regional outbreak of Ebola, a tropical virus that kills
around 90 percent of its victims, first began in southern Guinea
in February.

Since then more than 200 people have died in Guinea, Sierra
Leone and Liberia and new cases are still being reported despite
Conakry's claims that the situation is being brought under
control.